1.30.2011

new name, same blog

I've had this blog for a long time. But in the last year I feel I've moved farther away from whatever Hipsteradio used to be. This new name may be tentative, I have no idea what name will actually stick.


I'd change the web address as well, but I am fairly certain that it would screw up everyone's bookmarks. 

1.25.2011

but their alarm vanished

I am trying to comfort you.


There are bandages on your fingers and you're telling me you can't write anymore. You are losing control of your body, all of your teeth fell out last night and you were afraid to get out of the elevator. You think that maybe if you had one good night's sleep the circles under your eyes would stop reminding you of the black eye you had just last week. Sometimes you think that the fingers are still gripping your neck, crushing your windpipe, because you look into her eyes and the fear is still there, the fear she has that you were a mistake.


You'd like to think that your existence is more substantial than a narrowly avoided abortion, you'd like to believe that there was a reason why you are afraid of leaving the house and why you are going blind and why you feel so angry that your insides melt from suppressing screams. You are cutting things away; first was the long hair you spent over a year with to remind you that you were losing your mind, then it was your belongings because you realized things need to fit into a suitcase, now it is your sleep and your health and writing and music and school and even the skin off your fingers. You want to keep going like this forever, you want it to end right now.


I've never been able to comfort you.

1.22.2011

let's go surfing

I came home to an empty room. The Winnie-the-Pooh nightshirt that was ripped the night you broke up with me was not on the floor where I had left it yesterday morning — my mother always hated it, having to remember hearing me awake late at night crying into the phone, asking you not to leave me. The shelves, which had held so much of the memories I couldn't remember anymore, were ransacked, as was my bed. I started to inventory which old bears were missing, but realized it would hurt too much. I let the survivors retire on my now bare shelves and crawled into my empty bed.


Three years ago I must have left a piece of myself in your apartment. It was something I couldn't get back, because I didn't want to see the place that I loved so much. You neglected to put it in the bag of my belongings you returned to me just to see me hurt and ask you back again, though I doubt you would have found it in the first place: you never really knew how much I wanted to be with you. I sat on the couch that night, and she was there with me, making me anxious to see you, making me jealous and hurt and horny, all the emotions that made you call me "hysterical" and want me even more. And, just like back then, it wasn't right.


Even though I only had to hear it second-hand, I can imagine the biting tone of your voice as you ask angrily, "Why are you calling me?". I have to smile inside at the fact that my sister told you to fuck off, but more importantly I realized you probably wanted me to die. Or at least try to. It would have made us even, in a sick sort of way.


As I drag my body up the stairs, tired from being stared at, I can't help but wish to have someone in my life that isn't attracted to me at all. I want to be that old married couple that isn't quite old enough that everything is forgiven, or young enough that they are even remotely interested in sex with each other anymore. I don't want to be physical and crazy, I don't want to be held responsible for every single breath you take. I just want a friend to help me forget how empty my life is.

1.09.2011

now that you're here

I am unsure of how many people actually noticed my thanking them for all the wonderful comments, sporadically clicking "like" at the bottom of my posts, and for following my blog. I could say that the end of the year list was my way of thanking everybody, but just in case people didn't realize it (and will therefore miss out on those previous downloads, since I'm taking down all the links), here are a few more things to download. After reviewing all the albums I listed, there are quite a few glaring omissions that I will fill in now.


Gorilla Manor - Local Natives
Insound | Pitchfork Review | Mediafire


Not to be mean, but I'm honestly not surprised that I forgot about this album. Though Gorilla Manor does a lot of things right, even upon its first listen it feels extremely familiar. But this by far is no real criticism, Local Natives knows what works and goes with it. Gorilla Manor functions as a nice reminder that you don't need to force yourself to sit through an album just to spew some technical jargon to look smart.


Body Talk - Robyn
Insound | Pitchfork Review | Mediafire


I don't know many people that admit to listening to Robyn, or even people that have heard of her before (we're not all in tune with Swedish pop). Though I've listened to Robyn, her self-titled album from 2005, I don't imagine her music to be something many people would admit to liking, as her beats are dangerously close to other, more laughable pop stars. Even so, Body Talk, much like Robyn before it, is much deeper than just dance floor music. Robyn is dimensional, and though her lyrics may not make you rip your heart out, it's hard not to relate, even if you might not be a pop star.


Love Remains - How To Dress Well
Insound | Pitchfork Review | Mediafire


Growing up, my sister would take me into the back bedroom whenever our parents went out so we could sit by the radio and listen to music. Most of that time I spent studying the pattern in the couch while my sister stood next to the radio, waiting to hear her favorite songs. Through her influence, I listened to a lot of R&B as a child, and though today she will sometimes drag me into her room to listen to some old song we both heard together, the majority of those songs have already disintegrated in my memory, only a few strands of melodies actually triggering any memories (though, not surprisingly, I still remember that couch pretty vividly). Love Remains encapsulates that feeling of 1980s-1990s R&B, filtered through the years. Lyrics are half-mumbled, melodies hummed, and you can literally here vinyl crackling.


Gemini - Wild Nothing
Insound | Pitchfork Review | Mediafire


I've only spent a small amount of time with this album, having a hard time really remembering this album because everything felt a bit too fleeting (and I'll be honest, the album cover kind of creeps me out if I stare at it too long). Like the album above, Gemini also remembers 1980s music fondly, this time paying tribute to guitar-pop, sometimes channeling Johnny Mar or the Cure. The album is ripe with sulky, the trials of young love, and just about every other adolescent experience you can possibly romanticize.


Treats - Sleigh Bells
Insound | Pitchfork Review | Mediafire


It was a huge surprise to me that I managed to forget this album. It's a small consolation to realize that I don't have this album on my iPod or computer anymore, which would explain why I never had it on my list, but even so, it seems like something as loud as Treats would be a little harder to forget. Though I can understand that many people might be repelled by the sheer loudness of the album, at the same time, there is something very special about it. The music isn't loud just to be abrasive, but is instead satisfying. As Mark Richardson puts it, "The visceral thrill of Treats may not last forever, but neither does life; right now, this feels like living it".






These links will only be up for about three weeks. Thanks, again, for all the people that actually read through all the depressing stuff I've written over the last year.

1.05.2011

our bodies went missing in the night

At night, if I can arrange my blankets just right, there is a tunnel that I can slip into that leads straight into your bed. You grab me around the waist and pull me back under the covers. You whisper to me, "It's not right to be so miserable." I nod, because I know you're going to let me go again, and I'll wake up in my bed alone.


When I'm there, there are no more questions. When you hold my hand like that, it's hard to remember anything that's happened in the last year. 


I woke up this morning with blue ink on my thigh, it read "Why I'd rather dream than sit around bleakly with bores in 'real' life". I like to invent you, my own personal funny little frog, but sometimes I wake up and I am only talking to myself. I'd rather dream of you than sit around in real life.

1.03.2011

ghost of yesterday

I found it behind a pile of books crammed into a corner of my room, untouched since I stopped writing three years ago. I thought it was empty, like the other half a dozen notebooks with beautiful covers that I refuse to write in. But reaching for a new notebook, the cover lifted and there it was, a snapshot of someone I was three years ago. It was like looking at an old friend that will never come back.


Three years hardly feel like any time at all, but I can't remember the last time I felt the way she did. I've been trying to resurrect a ghost, holding onto what I thought were feelings just in order to have something to write about. She doesn't say much; she doesn't need fancy words, or an endless string of metaphors, but it's easy enough to figure out that she's in love. There are only three entries, all before everything fell apart.


My fingers trace the juvenile handwriting, and I want so much to protect her from what's to come. I'd never let her go to the transit center that day, I'd tell her to hold onto that feeling just a little longer because you won't be happy again for a very long time. But all I have is an old notebook.